Seattle’s 11th annual Decibel Festival is quickly approaching, which means it’s time to start the agonizing process of picking and choosing amongst the myriad of showcases, Optical shows, After-Hours, conference workshops, and boat parties the festival has to offer. There are shows and conference activities offered up to 19 hours a day in 12 locations around the city, making the necessary choice between too many exciting options a stressful problem, but truly the best problem to have.

“The urge to reinvent myself is strong, and the big question after London Zoo was, ‘Do I want to break away totally from my past, and the albatross of the ‘dubstep’ label…?’ The more I thought about it, the more I realised I had the most respect for artists who had found their individual voice, and then managed to extend their sound thereafter as a craft to be bettered and mastered. I decided to fight my initial kneejerk reaction to destroy the blueprint of London Zoo and the media’s misconception of me and that album, and instead, made the decision to try and use London Zoo as a foundation to build outwards from, whilst still acknowledging [its] relationship to [dubstep].” - Kevin Martin, The Bug

>When it’s summer, I want to hear blisteringly hot dance numbers or mellow jams from the torrid regions of the world. I’ve based this mix on artists from Latin America and the Caribbean; some of it’s hot, some of it’s mellow, and all of it is good for letting your mind wander to somewhere a bit more exotic. Be warned: finding sources for some of these musicians in English can be a challenge. But that makes the hunt all the more enjoyable. Summer in the Northern Hemisphere ends on September 22nd, so warm yourself up with these jams one last time.

Within a few weeks of one another, the Pacific Northwest finds itself graced annually with two significant events adhering to very different festival models: MusicFestNW and Bumbershoot Festival. Running since 1995 in Portland and 1971 in Seattle, respectively, both festivals have been known for catering to a wide and varied acts across a host of stages and venue locations. In late 2013, however, MusicFestNW announced that it would be approaching 2014′s festival a bit differently, foregoing its previous SXSW-esque multi-venue model in favor of a two-stage waterfront event. Bumbershoot, by contrast, has maintained its long-running model of utilizing the Seattle Center’s many venues to showcase interdisciplinary art. Both festivals have their huge differences in terms of history, infrastructure, funding models, and artistic goals — but considering the cornerstones that both festivals have been for their local communities and beyond, it seems only prudent to compare them a bit.

I went to the third Fuck Yeah Fest, in 2006, four months after I moved to Los Angeles. I went to the fourth one, too. At the third one, the still-ascendant local kids Silversun Pickups might have been the biggest draw, but clearly it was the punks’ three-day weekend: The Circle Jerks, Erase Errata, and No Age all performed. It was Circle Jerks frontman Keith Morris (Black Flag, Off!) who helped a bored 18-year-old Torrance, California upstart named Sean Carlson start the festival in 2004. In 2011, the FYF group — by then four core people and a handful of part-timers — partnered with promoting giant and AEG acquisition Goldenvoice. The FYF Fest I went to this past weekend bore little resemblance to the scrappy Echo Park gatherings of nearly a decade earlier.